Defenders
by jbgoldengun
Summary: Ray was just your everyday kid, late for a church activity. Little does he know his whole world is going to be turned around with super powers, love, and power-hungry murderers. Can he stay on the side of the person he loves or will he be consumed by evil
1. I'm Late!

**Defenders**

Chapter 1

Late

"I'm late! I'm late!" yelled Ray as he ran from school. 'Why do I have to stay late half the time? They always make me late for church!' he thought, running as fast as he could to church with his heavy backpack. He suddenly tripped, and out of curiosity of what tripped him, looked back to see a tree root sticking out. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something dart behind a tree a few yards back. Ray immediately forgot about it and started to get back to his church. He finally got their and went to where his youth group meets every Wednesday.

He saw that no one was there, and then remembered they were going bowling that night. Knowing that he would have to wait for his mom since he lived more than two miles away, he took his secret path into the new unfinished sanctuary. Walking up the steps, or at least what he thought were steps, to the loft, Ray thought he heard something behind him, but he kept on going. After sitting and looking around for a bit, a girl suddenly plopped down next to Ray.

"Aah! Who are you?" Ray asked.

"A friend" replied the girl.

"No, I mean, what's your name and why are you here?" Ray said, furthering questioning her.

"Oh, my name's Sophie and I'm here to save you."

"What's happening, and why do I need saving?"

"Just be quiet and follow me" Sophie replied.

Ray started to walk towards the stairs, but Sophie tugged on his arm as if to say 'Don't go there'. They walked back to the edge of the loft, then Sophie just jumped. Afraid that the girl he just met, and kinda liked, just killed herself, he looked over the edge. He just saw her squatting there, with one hand on the ground, almost ninja-like. While motioning to do the same thing, she mouthed the words 'Hurry up'. Right after he stepped over the side, he thought about how he was going to break a bone. But, to Ray's surprise, when he landed exactly like Sophie, he didn't feel a bit of pain. They ran out the doors of the unfinished building, but then stopped. Sophie turned around, withdrew a pebble, and threw it on the steps they almost went down. To Ray's surprise, when the pebble landed, the stairs blew up and the whole structure collapsed.


	2. The Escape

Chapter 2

The Chase

Ray and Sophie ran back into the hall. All of a sudden, they just froze. The hall was crawling with S.W.A.T. team members.

"Ok," said Sophie, "just stick your arm out or something when I tell you I'm ready."

Suddenly, she put some paper origami claws on all her fingers. Surprisingly, he just now noticed she had a pack on her back that had the claws in them. When he looked back at her hands, the claws were gone, but her fingers were now in the shape of them.

"Ok, two things," Sophie started to say while putting on some goggles, "when the guard walks towards you, turn out the lights, count to fifteen, then turn them back on. And secondly, be careful."

Suddenly, Ray blushed, but he wiped it off his face quickly. He nodded, and she started climbing the wall and stopped, looking like she was doing a handstand on the ceiling. Sophie nodded, and Ray jumped into the doorway, waving his hands like a madman. A guard ran over, and Ray jumped to the lights and turned them out. '1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10… 11…12…13…14…15.' Ray counted in his head. He turned the lights on, but the guard was gone. He looked behind him, only to find the guard lying on the ground with claw marks on him, with just his boxers on.

"Here, take these and put them on. I'll put a bit of his blood on my forehead, and you carry me out like I'm dead. Stick your clothes in the bag."

"Okay, but turn around" Ray replied.

"Fine, it's not like I wanna look or anything!"

Ray was now in the S.W.A.T. uniform, and he picked Sophie up, and walked into the hall.

"Halt! Who goes there?" yelled an almost robotic-like voice.

"I do. I saw her running around, and she must be in league with the stray, so I shot her. Now I'm taking her body to be burned."

"You sure you want to do that? She's a fine looking one."

"Ya, she's a beautiful one. But it's only right to burn her."

Suddenly, the soldier raised his gun and pointed it at Ray. "You're a fake. The kid is called the enemy, and we just leave the bodies. Now walk over to the window so the mess is easier to clean up."

Ray did as he was told, but he saw that Sophie's hand was still on her stomach, with the claws still on. Ray made a movement like he was caressing Sophie's arm, but he actually slid the claws off her fingers and onto his. But, he kept one off, and turned around with almost super-like speed and threw it right at the guard's stomach. It stuck in him and made him keel over, just like Ray was hoping would happen. That got all the other guards' attention and they went out like mad-men firing at him. Ray dodge them nimbly, and let them break the glass. See his one and only chance of escape, he jumped out the window and ran towards an empty bullet-proof S.W.A.T. car and went to the other side. At that instant, Sophie stopped playing dead and took a weird looking tool out of her pack.

"What in the world is that?" Ray asked.

"This? Oh, it's a special thing our "scientists" came up with. You can stick it in any slot you please and it'll morph to the right shape. Here, watch" she said as she started to stick the key in the hole of the car.

Suddenly, a laser shot came out of nowhere and hit Sophie in the arm.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" she yelled, dropping her arm from the key.

Ray lunged over to her and grabbed her pack.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of you in a minute. Just take cover somehow."

Sophie did as she was told, and Ray scavenged through her backpack until he found another paper origami weapon, except this time it was a ninja star. Something got in his eye all of a sudden, so he ducked his head down to get it out, only to find a big burn mark from another laser blast right where his head had been. With the agile speed of a squirrel, he turned around and threw the star at the man, and this time, hit him in his gun shoulder, which made him fall down on the ground and drop the gun. Ray sprinted over to the man, who was now unconscious from the pain, and took his gun. The side of the gun read 'Marksman Plasma Rifle 3.0'. Ray took out his pocket knife that he always carried with him for self-defense while going home, and cut off a big strand of the cloth from the guard's undershirt, and took his bullet-proof vest, and ran back over to Sophie. He wrapped the piece of cloth over Sophie's wound, and slipped on the vest so she wouldn't get shot in the body any at least.

"Ok, that should hold up for you long enough until we get you to real medical help. Now start on that key again, I'll hold the fire off long enough for you to get it open" Ray said.

After Ray finished telling Sophie what to do, he did a quick upwards turn and started firing his newly acquired gun, using the front of the car which was soon going to be his, as a bunker for reloading and protection.

Firing round after round, he realized that he was always hitting his targets. He decided to have some fun at that moment. He ran back over to the unconscious guard and took his holster that fitted the rifle and slung it around his neck and shoulder. Ray also thought about searching for some plasma grenades, but he settled for a regular everyday .38 caliber pistol. He took it's holster too, so that he could jump on top of the car without worrying of firing a shot that could save him. Standing where the guard was, he was a good 30 feet from the car, plenty of space to get a running start to his jump. Ray started off with a head-full sprint, but then slowed down only when he got right to the side of the car, only to jump. Grabbing onto the edge, he felt the air pressure from a bullet going right over his head. But then he smelled the crisp smell of burnt air, and he realized that he just almost got hit by another laser bolt. He waited until the split-second he had when the guns were charging back up to fire again, and then pulled himself up onto the top of the armored car. Ray flung the marksman plasma rifle out of its holster, and started firing right away. It all seemed like a big blur of motion to him, with the constant flaring light of the bolts and the groans of all the S.W.A.T. members falling to the ground, either dead or unconscious. The Marksman Plasma Rifle 3.0 eventually died all around, but there were still what looked like dozens of soldiers just swarming in to take the fallen guards places. Knowing that the rifle was now completely useless, Ray decided to try a technique he had always seen in movies. He jumped up with all the power he had and did an in-place side flip, throwing the gun in mid-spin. He was surprised when he landed that ten more guards were down, with nine of them having scorch marks somewhere on their body, except for one, who had a giant mark on his forehead, from, where Ray was guessing, the rifle he threw. Taking a wild guess, he thought that when the guard fell backwards, his finger was still on the trigger, charging up a shot, and when he fell back, his finger fell off of the trigger, causing the giant charged-up bolt to go through nine men in a row.

He took out the pistol, and he knew there was no more than ten bullets left in it, since it was a regular old ammo shell gun. He jumped backwards off the car, firing bullets the whole time, hitting a man with every one. When he landed, he saw that Sophie had the car now unlocked, with the driver's door opened. Ray looked around for her, and then saw she was hunched over in the passenger seat, ready for Ray to drive.

"Sweet, thanks for letting me drive. You wanna have some fun with these guys?"

"Just drive and get us out of here, whatever it takes. I don't care what you hit. This thing can't even be penetrated by a plasma bolt."

"Ok, your choice," Ray said as he peeled out in a donut and rammed threw a crowd of soldiers. "That should keep them at bay for a minute or two, but we don't have much time. Where do we go now?"


	3. The Real Chase

Chapter 3

The Chase

"Ok," Sophie said, "You know the gas station by the Y? Go there. I have some friends waiting there to help us out. You think you can get us there without getting killed?"

"Sure, we won't get killed… I hope."

"Huh? What was that?"

"Oh, nothing at all. Just keep that wound good. I, I mean, we, don't want to lose you" Ray said, blushing some at the same time.

All of a sudden, Ray saw a roadblock up ahead of giant cement slabs and armored cars.

"Stop! This is the S.W.A.T. team! You are under arrest! Pull the vehicle over or we will be forced to use lethal force!" a booming voice said over a loud speaker.

"Let's just see how lethal that force is." Ray said.

He had Sophie take the wheel while he climbed into the back of the car to find a Uzi-Magnum sub-machine gun, a KH-42 missile launcher, and a Marksman Plasma Rifle 5.0. He holstered the rifle again, set the Uzi on his seat, and opened the sliding side door with the KH-42 in his hands.

With precise aiming, Ray fired the KH-42 and took out enough of the block to get through. Deciding he had done enough of that, he told Sophie to move over to the driver seat, and he jumped back into the passenger seat of the car. He took the Uzi and started firing it at the guards on the side he was shooting out of. All of a sudden, Ray felt a sharp pain in his side, only to find that his right elbow had been torn open by a bullet. He quickly pulled back into the car and ripped a piece of his shirt off and quickly wrapped it around the wound. He stuck the Uzi out the window only this time, and he started firing and took the rest of the guards out on his side. Ray decided to pull back now, and switched places with Sophie again, who was starting to get dazed by the wound she had gotten.

"Just duck now, ok Sophie?" Ray asked.

"Ok, but what are you going to do?"

"You'll see" Ray replied.

He got about five feet away from the big section of remaining guards, then did a quick brake and fish-tailed the car around to take all the guards out. Now only a few were left and they ran for cover seeing how deadly Ray was. He went straight on driving towards the gas station and stopped. He suddenly realized that it looked abandoned.

"Ok Sophie, where do we go now that we're here?"

"We go into the gas station, then walk back to where the refrigerators are for drinks. Go to the one that's covered up and says out of maintenance and open it and just walk down the stairs" Sophie replied, but then she passed out.

When Ray walked into the gas station, he smelled a wicked odor. He quickly looked to see what it was. Looking over the counter, he saw the corpse of what looked like an employee lying on the ground. It looked like it had belonged to a teenager, and it had a gaping hole in the shirt right where his heart would have been. Ray came back to his senses and remembered Sophie's injury, so he put her on his back like he was giving her a piggy back ride and he ran as fast as he could to the out of maintenance refrigerator and ran down the stairs. When he got there, he saw four guys huddled around a table with the only light in the place hanging over it.

"You don't believe me that the T.E.L.L. is catching on to this outpost? Then go outside and look for yourself! Every 20 minutes there's a cop car going by, they're just waiting for us to walk out while they drive by! They see one of us coming out or going in, and they have automatic permission from their superiors to laser this building out of existence! As soon as Sophie gets back here with that guy, we gotta take our machinery and get the heck out of here!" said a deep voice, sounding like the oldest of the group.

"Fine, once Sophie gets back, we'll have someone use the scope to watch for one hour, and if a cop car drives by every 20 minutes, we'll leave! You happy?!" Ray instantly recognized that voice, even though it was even deeper than the other and deeper than when he last heard it.

"Is that you Leo? I thought you died in a freak car accident?" Ray questioned.

"Aah! Ray, you're finally back! We've been waiting…… Holy crap! What happened to Sophie?! Is she still alive?!"

"Yeah, but she might not be alive for much longer, she's already unconscious from blood loss and she needs to get to a medical area quick."

"Ok then, forget all that crap about lookout for an hour, we need to go now, we'll go with Sophie and Ray, the soldiers will go with the scientists and equipment. Come on Ray, follow me to the hanger."

"Sure thing Leo." Ray replied.

"Oh yeah Ray, I forgot to tell you, I go by Leon now."


	4. A 360 Ollie with 300 lbs of extra weight

Chapter 4

A 360 Ollie, With 300 Pounds of Extra Weight

"Hey Ray, do you know how to ride a skateboard?" Leon asked me.

"Yeah, I can do some tricks with it." I replied, wondering where this was going.

"Good, cause you need to know how to ride with us, cause we always carry too much for someone to hang onto us. Oh, and you need to be able to ollie, pop shove-it, and kickflip, cause you can't just try running into T.E.L.L. agents on a hoverboard."

That last sentence got me, cause I still don't know what a T.E.L.L. agent is, and HOVERBOARDS! I thought those were just t.v. show things.

"Um, Leon, two questions. One, what's T.E.L.L. mean? And second, you really have hoverboards?" I asked, still completely confused.

"Oh yeah, I forgot you were new to this world for a second. T.E.L.L. stands for Teenager Extermination Liaison Legion. And yes, we have hoverboards, but don't touch the one with a water design on the bottom, that's mine. We don't have any spares, so you can use Sophie's, it has a picture of the sun on the bottom. Just be careful not to hit the bottom, or else you'll be in for a heck of trouble. Ah, here we are."

The hanger was huge. It looked like a giant gym. There was five hoverboards in the corner on a rack. One had a sun on it, one a drop of water, another a gust of wind, one a boulder, and the final one had a lightning bolt on it.

"Ok, here's the boards, you already know the sun and water ones are Sophie's and mine. The lightning one is Elijah's, you'll see him soon, along with David and John. David has the boulder one, and John has the wind one. Oh, Elijah and David's have special meanings, you probably know what they are, since Sophie got you from a church." Leon said quickly.

It seemed like he was getting more and more agitated the longer we stayed here. I knew the hidden meanings too, David killed Goliath with a pebble, and Elijah got taken to heaven in a beam of light. Creepy how that matched up so well. John, David, and Elijah came in carrying Sophie in a giant backpack-like stretcher, and they walked towards me.

"Here you go Ray, you're gonna carry Sophie to the HQ for this area. Here let me help you get it on," Leon suddenly shot a "not now" look at John, who was talking, and he cut off "cause it's kinda heavy, it took all three of us to get it here. When it gets on you, most of the weight you're gonna feel is the bag, not Sophie." He finished saying, as he shot me a wink, and I immediately knew what it meant.

"Hey, hold up guys, I don't like her like that…yet" I mumbled the last part under my breath.

"Ok, here's the plan guys," Leon started saying, "we'll be coming out at the YWCA, me, Ray, and Elijah will take the route along Hershey past Stevenson. John and David will take the route on Empire, past the cemetery, and then onto Airport road. When you guys get up to the Four Seasons Two fitness club, hang right, and then right when you get past the pine trees, hang a right again and go through the entrance to there. You remember how to get past the security doors, right?"

"Yeah, we remember, we were just there last week for supplies, remember?" John replied. "All we do is use our…"

Leon shot another "not now" glance. I just had a feeling that I'd find a lot out from John.

"So, we just have to go towards the retention basin by Northpoint? Sounds easy enough." I said.

"Oh, that's a good one Ray, you thought they'd just give up on you when they missed you there? My guess is that they're gonna have stations set up every 100 yards along this route we're taking, that's why we have one more person. John and David are taking our emergency route, and the scientists and foot soldiers will be close behind them, they won't think we'll take that way." Leon replied.

Great, we get the more dangerous path, this day just keeps on getting worse.

"Everyone!" Leon got up onto a little stage by what looked like the exit of the hangar. "We've found him! You should all have the stuff that's important to you with you now, and we're setting off, no one follow me and Elijah! You will wait here after the Forward Guard leaves for about three minutes, then take the emergency route, which should be completely cleared out with David and John going ahead of you! Don't turn back unless you lose someone! We have to get everyone and thing to the facility! Elijah, Ray, David, John, let's go now.

We were finally off. Yay. I could just tell this wasn't gonna go good when we hit a blockade right at the first intersection after we left.

"Ray, can you do pogo?!" Leon yelled as he was fighting some soldiers while still on his board.

"Kinda! Why?! Do you need me to do it!"

"Yeah! Do it! But keep your legs away from the sun symbol!" Leon yelled as he dodged a near miss laser.

I started doing the pogo the best I could on the hoverboard.

"Oh yeah, Ray, close your eyes and yell right before you hit the sun symbol on the bottom!" Leon yelped as another laser this time singed his skin.

So I closed, my eyes, and yelled "Eyes!" and hit the bottom of the board. I felt an immense heat by my leg for a moment, and then I opened my eyes, seeing all the soldiers lying on the ground.

"Ho. Ly. Cr. Ap…………"

The soldiers were just lying on the ground, twitching, like they just got Maced or Tazed.

"Um, Ray, we wanna get goin fast!" Leon yelled.

The three of us zoomed off again, and we didn't have that many problems until we got to the home stretch. We turned onto the final street that ran alongside the school we had to go by. The school looked like it had been bombed out of its misery. No ceiling or walls. Just some stacks of bricks to hide behind for the rats.

We got a bit closer to the school, and then saw the barrels of guns set themselves on parts of the brick piles. The agents were hiding behind the piles waiting for us. Surprisingly, they hadn't fired yet. Still moving forward, we came to a turn-in into a neighborhood. A tank. A BIG tank. Lowering the barrel like a butterfly does its sucker, it was aimed right at us. Now I knew why the agents didn't fire.

"Come on, anytime now would be good…" I heard Leon mumble.

The tank started to rumble, and I knew what that meant. We all went off in separate directions, leaving a crater in the ground where we had been standing.

"Elijah! You know what we have to do! Forget letting him see! Now!"

Suddenly, a huge gush of water came out of Leon's board and hands, while bolts of lightning came out of Elijah's. Convening at the tank, a giant explosion occurred. After the smoke cleared, all that was left was the treads of the tank. No bones, no circuits, nothing.

Gunfire immediately opened. I ran into a ruined garage for my life. Some stationed floodlights flickered on. I saw five agents, cloaked in black. They looked completely different from the regular ones. Black 50's hats, long trench coats, black shades, the whole deal. Their hands were in their pockets, but they were slowly being drawed out. Some pretty impressive handguns like I had never seen before were being pulled out, and then I realized these guys had to be pros or something.

CRACK!

One fired a shot, hitting my foot. It hurt like the flames of heck. I jumped off the board, knowing their shades would keep the light of the board out.

"Guys, I'm new to this, I don't even know the story to all this, I'm just following a child-hood friend. You really gonna hurt a clueless person that doesn't know what's going on?"

A nod from all of them. A different guy fired a shot, and I ducked. Quickly looking behind me, I saw a bullet hole in the wall where my head was.

"Move it, you jacks!" Elijah yelled as he came hurtling in on his feet, decking a guy to the ground with a decent pile of blood. "Get away from him, you a-holes!" he yelled next, zapping all four remaining agents with lightning.

He threw his board in the sack with Sophie, and ran off. I did the same, guessing it was the right thing to do now. I started running, with bullets flying from behind me and in front of me, just hoping I wouldn't get hit. I saw Elijah run behind the piles of bricks at the schoolground, and I followed, against my better judgement. Turns out that behind the piles were teenagers, from thirteen to eighteen, all firing plasma weapons and shotguns.

Elijah ran back to a guy that looked like he was a commander, mostly because he looked big enough to be eighteen, and had a weird helmet with lots of big thorns on top, while all the soldiers had small thorns. I'm guessing that they are for if parts of your weapon get messed up.

"Ma'am, we have the Flame with us now. He's right behind me." Elijah said, as I ran up behind him.

"Wait, why in the world are you calling me the Flame? I don't even know what the heck is going on around here! These people try to blow me up after I miss a trip to a bowling party of death! Then I have to drive a car halfway across town through a roadblock of skilled gunman to get to a gas station with a rotting teen corpse behind the counter! Next I find my thought to be dead friend is alive, and that I have to try and get to an HQ past basically an army of skilled gunman! When we almost get there, we encounter a tank, which I see get destroyed by supernatural powers! I run into a garage to escape gunfire from you guys, only to be attacked by five guys that look like they belong in Grease! Now I…"

"No, they're here… Is this true Elijah, are the Patriots here?" the commander asked.

"Um… Yes, the Patriots are here. I immobilized all of them temporarily when they were about to kill the Flame. One is probably in fatal condition from being decked, and the others are knocked cold. I zapped them." Elijah told her.

She turned around and started pacing. "This completely changes things. If the Patriots are here, they must really want him. Elijah, call Leon through your mind. David and John are already here, they were the ones that warned us to get out here. Once Leon gets here, you three get into the base. We'll hold them off long enough for you to get completely in."

"Yes, Commander April. Immediately." Elijah replied.

Elijah suddenly went into a trance-like look, and then after a couple of seconds, he came out of it. I saw Leon zoom up on his hoverboard. He looked drenched, like he was dropped in a lake a few times over.

"Ok Elijah, Ray, lets get going. We want to be as fast as possible so we don't get any casualties."

We ran down into a retention basin, all the while hearing gunshots behind us. Coming to a sewer, we ducked and started to go through it. Then I accidentally ran into Elijah. I heard two knocks on the wall, then little glowing circles appeared next to a wall. I saw a drop of water go through the first one, and a small spark of lightning go through the second.

"Guys, what am I supposed to do? I don't have those powers." I asked, wondering if we would be stuck here.

"Ya you do Ray," I heard Leon say in the darkness, "Just think really hard about fire, and it coming out of you. But only think about it coming out of your fingertip, in a small amount. And just keep your fingertip above that circle."

Concentrating, I thought of how warm flame is, and it exiting my body. Suddenly my fingertip burned for a second, and then I heard a voice say "You're clear."


	5. The base

Chapter 5

The Base

A door opened up, to a big lighted area with lots teens walking around somewhat casually, since they knew a fight was going on outside. It was like a giant mall, with us on the top floor. There was a square hole in the center, probably where you could look down. But in the middle of the hole rose a telephone tower. Of course. Bring hundreds of teenagers together, and you can't forget the telephone tower. Have to have that.

This top floor had weapons racks and tables with disected weapons on them. Armor stands were also scattered around the place as well. We started to descend down the levels in a weird elevator-like thing. It looked like welded-together shopping carts. Even for not being a real elevator, it still had buttons and a screen telling you which floor you were on. The elevator suddenly stopped, and I saw the screen showing 'Floor 5, Medical Floor'.

We stepped out of the cart elevator thing and walked forward to some doors. The doors slowly slid open, creaking the whole time. Bright lights suddenly filled my eyes, blinding me for a second. Some people started pushing me in different directions, and I saw they were wearing war-torn clothes. I just realized that those people were Elijah, Leon, David, and John. David suddenly pulled some rock out of the ground, and John got the stretcher with Sophie off my back and onto the new rock stretcher. They did all that without touching anything.

"Come on Ray, you come this way with me and Elijah," Leon started "David and John will get Sophie to emergency care quick. We're just gonna get your foot bandaged up and make sure the Patriots didn't do anything to you that you can't see."

I followed Leon and Elijah to an empty table, in the middle of the area. Sitting down, I finally realized how bad everything was. Leon and Elijah's clothes were now basically rags on them, with holes covering them everywhere. Yet there was not a hole on them at all.

"Guys, why is it your clothes are all ripped and torn now but there's no holes or anything on you?" I asked.

"That's simple Ray, just watch this," Leon replied.

Like something out of a movie, a small area on his skin where one of the holes was at just turned to water for a few seconds. I guess that had to do with his powers. He must turn his body into water for a few seconds and let everything go through him.

"Ok, you're all good Ray. Let's go check on Sophie now. I'm sure you want to know how she's doing," Leon said, then he started laughing.

"What is up with you guys? I mean, she finds me and gets me to you guys. Now you think I like her. Why?" I asked, getting tired of them annoying me about this.

"Sorry Ray, it's just we can tell you like her. I mean, you're worried about her when you get to us. And you carried her in keeping her off the ground. You could've just saved your strength and just throw her arm around your shoulder and somewhat drag her, but you didn't. I bet even she knows you like her." Elijah stated.

"Oh, so that's it. Well, I kinda like her, so what? Anyway, if those Patriot guys are supposed to be like pros at this, why didn't they just kill me right away? They fired a shot at my foot, then waited a second, then fired again."

"Dang, lucky, you're one of those guys that got time-lapse powers too. You suck man, I've always wanted that!" Elijah yelled jokingly.

"Oh, Ray, just so you know, we do know how to take powers away from people. We've done it before, and don't make us do it with you." Leon stated.

"Oh my gosh guys! I'm not gonna use those powers for that type of stuff, geez, you're just like the idiots at school. Can we drop the whole Sophie topic now?"

"Fine," Leon said, "hey, turn right here."

We turned into a massive room, there was control panels all along the walls, with a bunch of teenager techies sitting in front of them, typing stuff.

'Wwwwwwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooo!!!!!!'

"Crap," Leon said as he ran to an older teen, "What the freak just happened? Is a place getting bombed again?"

"Ya, it seems like they dropped some mini nukes on all the junior highs, they all completely wiped out, nothing left. Wait one sec to let me hack into the district's cameras."

The techy started typing super fast, like it was a matter of life or death. Suddenly, all the screens popped up with grainy black and white pictures of school hallways. Except, they won't hallways anymore, they were just piles of rubble.

"Sh…, hurry and rewind five minutes, and record everything up to here. Get it out on DVD and shut the whole system down. Quick!" Leon shouted at all the people at the computers.

Elijah and I ran over to Leon, wondering what n the world he was doing.

"Leon, you son of a…" Elijah started, but I cut him off.

"Leon, why are you having them do this, I have a feeling it'll take a while to get all this stuff back up and running."

"Cause, don't you think it's kinda weird that the schools got mini-nuked, but all the cameras are still standing?! They were freakin' trying to hack into our system to find our location! We can't let that happen! They find where we're at, it's all over. Hundreds of teenagers will be dead!"

"Umm…, Cpt. Leon, you might wanna look at this last five minutes we got. There's a tv with a generator in the rec room. You wanna tell everyone what's going on over the emergency intercom center before you leave?" the techy asked.

"Sure, here, give me the mic. 'Attention everyone, you have probly noticed that the power around here has been shut down. It is due to the T.E.L.L. trying to hack our location. There is no need to be alarm though, they didn't have enough time to find our base. The power will be back on soon.' Ok, give me the disc. Where's the 8th grade halls playtime on here? We gotta check it out."

"It's at the very beginning, we thought you would want to see that first."

We walked out of the room, and got to one of the elevators. It sucked, cause we had to operate it by hand, and the rope and metal blistered up our hands. We got to the rec room floor, and we all got off. Turns out the generator was bigger then expected.

"Ok, Elijah and Ray, you guys get the dvd player and go down in one of the elevators, I'll take the generator and go down in another, we're go to the ground floor, that's the plaza where everyone usually hangs out, and set this stuff up with the giant screen tv down there so everyone can see."

"K, we'll meet you down there." Elijah said. "Come on Ray, there's something awesome you can do with these elevators that make them go faster."

We got to the elevator, and put the dvd player in first, along with the disc. Leon was still a ways back there since the generator was so heavy.

"Ok, so this is what you do Ray, remember the finger scanner thing? Of course you do, you just did it a bit ago. Now, do that again, but keep the flame on your fingertip. Good, just like that. Now stick it under the thing holding us onto the cable. I'll take the other side. I'm gonna press the button to go down now, just keep your fingerflame by the metal wire, and we're zoom down there in record time."

Boy, did we zoom down there fast. The only problem was one time I lost my concentration and a bit of flame went flying up, but nothing serious. We got to the bottom, only to meet John, David, and Sophie standing there, looking upset with us.

"Elijah, we told you we're not supposed to do that, someone could get really injured!" Sophie yelled at him, scolding him like a dog after taking a pee on the new rug.

"What?! I wasn't the only one that did it, Ray did it too! Yell at him some, will ya!" Elijah yelled back.

"I know, but Ray is new here, and he didn't know the rules, so he doesn't get yelled at." Sophie replied.

Elijah handed the dvd to Sophie and the dvd player to David and John. They turned around and headed towards the giant tv where everyone was gathered around at.

"I only did that to let you know she likes you too man, I knew she would yell at me big-time, but it was still fun." Elijah said, mocking me so much I was getting pretty annoyed.

"Dude, will you just shut up about it? You're really ticking me off right now, and we have to stay cool and help Leon with the generator."

Suddenly, there was a big burst of flame and we heard a yell that sounded like Leon from high above.

"Umm…, Ray, did any flame ever escape when we were making the elevator speed?"

"I don't think so, crap, wait, ya, a piece did. Is that bad?" I asked, freaking out.

"Heck ya, Leon's holding on for dear life up there. It must of hit the ropes of his elevator."

Sophie, David, and John came hurrying over. They all looked at each other, then their legs just changed, except for David, who stayed the same as usual. Sophie's legs were just light, John's were visible gust of wind, and Elijah's became lightning bolts.

Sophie then flew up to about the middle of the tower like underground structure, and then went into a trance-like state, and just let light burst out everywhere. Now that the whole place was illuminated, John and Elijah sped up to the elevator. John took in a giant breath, and all the swaying just stopped, and everything was still. It looked like Elijah was talking to Leon, then he came zipping back down.

"Ok, David, Leon needs you to go up there and get him down, and I'm gonna bring the generator down. Ray, you need to go up there like all of us are and fuse the metal cables back together. It turn's out that's what snapped, not the ropes."

David suddenly went flying up on a pillar of rock towards Leon to get him. I knew these were my only pair of pants, so I ran behind a fountain and took off my socks, shoes, and long jeans. Focusing really hard, I felt my legs start to heat up, then I didn't even fell the ground. On the way up, I passed David and Elijah and then got to the elevator.

"Ok, Ray, I'll hold the cables, and you fuse them back together with flame, but not from your fingers. You try that right now, and you'll start falling, you don't have enough experience at the moment. Just turn on your side and fuse them with your leg flames." John instructed me.

John had trouble getting the cables, but we got it all fused back up. The only people left in the air now, Sophie, John and me zipped back to the ground.

"Thanks guys, no clue how that happened. At least we can still show this video to everyone now." Leon said, very gratuitous for the help.

"Oh, and Ray, nice boxers." Sophie said, kind of chuckling too.

I realized I was so excited I forgot to grab my pants, socks and shoes. Sophie and I both turned red at the cheeks at the exact same time.


	6. The Video

Chapter 6

The Video

We all ran up to a stage, after I got the rest of my clothes on of course, and started hooking everything up. Leon stepped up to the front and yelled for everyone's attention, but no one stopped talking. Getting irritated, he swung his hand in front of him and water sprayed out, like a sprinkler, getting everybody wet. It got there attention though.

"Ok everyone," Leon shouted out to the crowd, "this is a video of the local junior highs hallways. We don't know about the high-school, but we doubt anyone goes there anymore, since we have most of you guys here."

"YAAAAAA!" suddenly reiterated around the room from all the high school teens in the back of the area.

"Ok, let me finish now guys. It turns out that the T.E.L.L. tried to hack us, so keep in mind that this stuff might not be real. But besides that, here goes."

There were three benches lifted up onto the stage by John, and I sat in the middle of one, and Ray and Sophie came over and sat on either side of me. John, Elijah, and David sat on the other bench. They were crowded, with the three of us at each crammed together, but I had no problem with that since Sophie was sitting next to me.

The video started up, and it showed all the cameras from the eighth grade hallways. After about two minutes, there was a bright flash, and then the horrible image we saw earlier. There wasn't anything left at all, it was plain destruction. I heard a sniffle from Leon next to me, and I looked over to see some tears running down the side of his face.

"Leon, what's the matter, even you said that we shouldn't take this video completely seriously?" I asked him, wondering what could make this good friend of mine cry.

"Well, I guess I can tell you, since I've known you for so long, Ray. It's hard to get more than one person a month away, so that it doesn't look too suspicious. There's this girl I like that goes to the school that these cameras are from. We were going to get her away next, but now it's too late."

I suddenly heard Sophie's voice, and it turned out her head was right next to mine. "I know I couldn't go without having Ra… I mean the person I like, with me during this time. Just remember Leon, this video might be forged, and she's still alive."

I suddenly felt somewhat at ease after hearing her say that, having a good feeling that she was about to say my name. It also made me feel good knowing how close her face was to mine, and she smelled so good too.

"Hey Leon, how 'bout the six of us, with some backup outside, go to the school, and if they have anyone there, we can liberate all of them at once. The T.E.L.L. won't even know what hit them. Think about it, if we succeed, we save a bunch of kids. We don't, they won't do anything to them besides what they were gonna do in the first place. How 'bout it?"

I knew it was a far-fetched idea, but it was worth saying. I was even more surprised at Leon's reply, "Ok, we'll do it. A lot of the people out in that crowd have good friends and people they like at that school. We might even get more people to help then we really need."

"The more help, the better. But we need someone that can't be seen to go out on reconnaissance to see what they've done with the people, and to make sure they're still there. I think John fits the bill. He can change into invisible wind unlike what he did earlier, right?

"Sure, so it's set. I'll go tell everyone and get volunteers."

Leon slowly walked up to the front of the stage, stopped the video, and started to speak.

"Ok everyone. We're going to go to the junior high to liberate everyone there. We will go in five days, enough time for learning our plans and training for new volunteers. We need as many volunteers to go as possible. Any takers?"

Almost half of the teens raised their hands, and let me tell you, that was a lot.

"Ray, that was a great idea. If we succeed, everyone around here will a lot happier," Sophie said happily, and then she gave me a peck on the cheek. It felt like I was melting into a puddle. It was the most wonderful feeling I ever felt.

Right before my mind ran off, I heard Leon yell:

"We will liberate, we will succeed, and we will win!"

Then there was a big cheer, and I drifted away into a world unknown.


	7. Day One: The Armory

Chapter 7

Day One:

The Armory

"Ray. Ray! Wake up you lazy bum!"

I opened my eyes to see Sophie bending over me and waving her hand at me.

"Um, Ray, you kinda fainted a while ago. We thought something was wrong with you after meeting the Patriots, so we got you rushed to the medical wing. Turned out nothing was wrong with you, so David brought you back to the room all of the Elemental guys stay in. There's a lot of empty beds, but that'll start to change today."

Everything came at me so fast, I lost track of it all. "Wait, so you're saying I fainted? Greeeeeat. And this is my room? It's freaking huge! Why are there 8 other beds here? I thought there was only the other 4 guys who have elemental powers? Oh no, if I fainted the means you know I…" So many questions, she must think I'm annoying or something.

Sophie suddenly interrupted me before I could finish. "Ok, let me answer all those questions in order. Yes, you fainted. And yes, it is your room, but remember, you share it, so keep it clean. There's another 4 Elemental guys, but they're not really elemental, they just have powers. You'll find out about them soon. Last but definitely not least, yes, I know you like me. I like you too, so don't get worried about it. One last thing, don't faint this time."

With those last words, she gave me another kiss on the cheek. Now I knew why she said that. I jetted up after that, feeling awesome now. I moved so that I was sitting on the edge of the bed next to Sophie.

"Just remember," Sophie said, "if you try anything, too far, I can make you go blind for life."

I laughed at that, but that really scared me. But it was all remedied once she laid her head on my shoulder. I carefully started to put my arm around her shoulder.

"That's ok, you can put your arm around my shoulder, gees. One little word of caution, and you're scared half to death." Sophie said.

Suddenly, Leon burst into the room. "Hey Ray! Come on… Oh, nice to see you two are having a nice time. I guess you didn't tell him I had to give him a quick rundown on the weapons, did ya Sophie? And Ray, I told ya so."

That got me. On my hand not around Sophie's shoulder, I flicked a little flame on the tip of my finger, and Leon got the point.

"Oh yeah, sorry Ray. I forgot to tell you that. Leon's gonna give you a quick rundown on the weapons and armor, then tell you what we're doing today to prepare for the liberation. Me and Leon will wait outside while you get changed, not that it matters boxer boy. The clothes are in the footlocker at the foot of your bed. One last thing, they're fire-proof, so you won't have to have another incident like yesterday."

Sophie walked out the door, and Leon put in real quick, "Put the armor on too, you'll need it soon."

With those words, the room was now empty except for me. I walked to the foot of my bed, opened the foot locker, and saw awesome armor. But no clothes. I reached down to pick up the armor, but I felt of piece of cloth on top of it, so I picked that up. Except, when I looked at it, all I saw was the wall that was behind it.

I decided to put it on, wondering if it would just show my regular clothes under me. After I slipped it on, I looked at my arm. Nothing, I just saw the ground. I moved out my other arm to see if my arm was there. When I felt my arm, I realized, my hand was just floating there, with nothing holding it onto my arm. I decided it was a cloak undershirt. Pulling out the armor, I saw how awesome it really looked.

The body was divided into five parts, all sewn onto a bullet-proof piece of cloth. There was a one piece for each set of ribs, a 2 pieces covering the small and large intestine, and then a hexagonal plate in the middle of it all. The only two places where there wasn't armor was between the rib pieces and the small intestine plate. Armor covered all of the arms, with only small cracks where the joints hinged. It was exactly the same with the legs. No boots though, but there was some thick-looking black sock-like things. I put them on, and I felt a couple inches taller from them. When I lifted my leg then to walk in a circle, I didn't feel any weight difference from anything at all. I finally picked up the helmet, and turned it around in my hands, examining it all over. It looked somewhat like a full-head bulky hockey mask, with three slits where my mouth would be. But the eyeholes were big, with them ending on the side of the head. I slipped it on to see how it fit, and it turned out the eyeholes were made that way so you could have peripheral vision. I took it off, held it in my hand, and walked out of the room to meet Leon.

"Hey Leon, where's Sophie?" I asked, wondering where my new girlfriend went to.

"Oh, she had to go get ready for the mission today. Follow me, you're gonna get to see what all our weapons and armor look like, including all the prototype stuff. That stuff is freakin' awesome. But I'll wait and let you see it for yourself."

It turned out we were the closest to the upper levels, which included the medical wing and the armory. We just walked up the stairs after the elevator incident. I had a feeling Leon would never use it again. It wasn't tiring or anything getting to the armory, since it was only two flights of stairs.

When we got there, I saw there was about thirty teens grabbing armor and weapons. There was every type of weapon imaginable, from blaster rifles to nunchucks to bows and arrows to swords. All of them each had what looked like its case next to it.

"Go on Ray, take three things, but remember to grab a sword and a rifle. Those are essential for the field, even with our powers." Leon informed me.

I walked up and down the tables, looking at everything they had. I took one of the best looking bows and the arrows that went with it, since I was on the archery team at school, and pretty good too. The next thing I took was a Claymore, a small two-handed sword. Next I got to the guns, and picked up a sniper handgun with a bayonet on the end.

"Ok Leon, I got all my weapons. A bow and arrows, a Claymore, and a sniping handgun with a bayonet."

"Dang, they have that for a gun now? It was just so limited back when I picked my weapons. I gotta talk to the labbies soon about that, there was so many times I could've used one of those. Ok, follow me know, I'm going to show you the infantry armor so you don't attack them, and then I'll show you the prototype Elemental armor that we'll wear someday," Leon said as he walked off.

When we got into the room with all the armor, Leon gave a quick view of each from all sides. "Ok Ray, the last thing about this armor is that it measures the vitals of whoever's wearing it, and if they die, it disintegrates. So never fire at a fellow troop, even if you think it's an enemy in disguise, because they don't have any of our suits."

We entered the final room, where the prototype armor Leon was talking about was at. "Ok Ray, listen to our scientist, Joey, he'll tell you all about it," Leon said as he sat down in a chair by the wall.

"Ok Ray, this is the prototype armor, and it's very complicated. Let's start from the bottom up. The boots here, you see how they have long blades that are kinda like a toenail or something on the front and back. Those enable you to climb on ceilings upside down, and if you do a kick on something so the side of the blade hits them, it will slice them in half, no matter what. Let me show you."

He took one of the boots, held them in his hand, and sliced at one of many concrete blocks standing around the room. It cut it in half like a knife cutting butter. "See, can cut through anything. Next up is the pants. They're pretty much like regular armor pant-legs, but they have something somewhat like swords coming out of the sides, two on each side. Except the ends aren't sharp, so you won't stab yourself when lowering your arms. They're just as sharp as the boot blades. Now, the torso armor. It has something like shoulderpads on it, except they arc off of the shoulder, and they have spikes as sharp as everything else on it. Everything is as sharp as everything else, just to get that settled. Now, you don't see any gloves, do you? It's because the arms extend over the gloves, and has those string-like things on them. But, there's microscopic blades littered all over them."

"Finally the helmet. It's pretty much the same, but it's tougher, and it also has the string things on it. Oh, I forgot to tell you, there's storage spots on the back of the body where it holds our ultimate weapon. So, there's these portable light wheel things that you wrap strings of lights around. We cut one in half, and added giant blades on it. If you step behind that thick wall there, we'll show you how it works when you throw it."

I stepped behind the wall, it was made up of five layers of concrete blocks, and the labbies brought out the wheel-blade. Joey got behind the wall with me, and threw it at a set of concrete blocks, three in thickness. It came in from the side, sliced all of them with ease, and started to come back at us. It struck the wall right below the window and cut three layers of the wall in half, causing them to fall. We went out from behind the wall, and saw it had gone halfway through the fourth layer. I couldn't wait to use this.


	8. The Gas Station

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Day One:

The Gas Station

"Come on Ray, we gotta get to the Briefing Room now. We're going to find out about our mission and you'll find out how we're going to get to the spot." Ray said after the demonstration.

We walked out of the armory, and went straight across the hall to a room with a big sign over it that read 'Briefing Room'. When we got inside it, I saw Sophie, David, John, and Elijah. I naturally sat down by Sophie. There was a diorama-like map of the city hanging in the middle of the room, with the ground level hanging a bit above a series of tunnels, one of which I recognized as the tunnels of the now-abandoned gas station I came from.

"Ok, all of you know what our mission is, except Ray, who was out at the time." I immediately blushed, and Sophie squeezed my hand.

Leon continued on, "The four days before the liberation are days to gather supplies, gather the other four Elementals, and prepare to leave. Walter, Ian, and Ray, the reason we're leaving is because once we liberate that school, there's going to be way too many people to contain here, so we'll be moving to Lake Timber, which is our Midwest headquarters in Wisconsin."

I looked around the room to see who Walter and Ian were, and I saw they were wearing decorated infantry armor. They must be the two generals.

I turned my attention back to Leon, who was now using the map in the middle of the room. "Okay Walter and Ian, you will lead the infantry for this battle through the deep catacombs. Everyone else here, you know how we're traveling so we can get there fast. Ray, the way the Elementals get from bases quickly like this when we need to stay undercover is by getting "sucked" into something of our element.

"So, Sophie touches the end of a light bulb and gets pulled in, while I get pulled in a bottle of water. Then we get put in little tube systems like the banks have, and get jetted off to the location. And don't worry, it's not cramped at all inside your item. So we're gonna put you in a lighter, which has flames, you understand?"

I just nodded my head yes. It was so confusing, but I figured I would get it after seeing the other guys do it.

"Ok guys, some of you know who we're getting, some of you don't since he had left for his post before we got you. His name is Spike, a minor Elemental. And Ray, that just means he has powers that aren't of the elements. It'll be somewhat easy to get him I surmise, since he has guns built into his body practically.

"He's the person of ours that works at the Ez-N-Quik gas station that's just a bit further south of our old gas station. We have to be careful with this one, because they're going to keep watch over the younger adults that they missed just before this whole thing started. Spike has supposedly found out that he gets a disguised T.E.L.L. agent coming into his gas station two times a day. We're going during the later one, but the agent won't even know we're there until it's too late for him.

"We are actually going to stay in our "container" until the guard comes in, and then we'll break free and take him out with ease. We'll throw him into the underground area where our infantry will be waiting. Then here comes your big part Ray. We'll have Sophie call in on his two-way while you're rummaging through the car to find his armor. Then you'll come back in, go to the bathroom, and change into his uniform, since as Sophie tells us, you fit into them pretty well. By then a squad of the agents should be there.

"From our previous encounters with the T.E.L.L., we know they keep their vehicle for dead or knocked out teens in the back of the group of cars, but when you get past the last pillar that holds the roof over the gas tanks, Spike will "shoot" you in the chest and get to the roof above the gas tanks. You'll fall over supposedly dead, but it'll only go through your disguise. Fake blood will come out, since our Elemental suits have that, and they'll think you're just a dead soldier, so they'll start to open fire on the building."

"Ok," I interrupted, jumping out of my seat, "so you're saying I'm going to be lying out in the open surrounded by T.E.L.L. agents with big guns?! Won't they recognize it's me anyway? They'll be so close to me, that if I try to get up to attack, instant death!"

"Calm down Ray, we always have this stuff planned out very well" Sophie said as she squeezed my hand and I sat back down.

Leon continued on, "Now, Ray will be far enough back after we take about a row or two of the agents out that no one will see him getting up. Spike will look off the ceiling and see you standing up, so he'll get himself over back to the building we'll be in sniping agents. That's when Ray uses his flames to blow up the entire fuel supply, and it'll scorch all of the agents, since they'll be close or under the structure.

"We'll run underground, make sure the guys that were on the football and wrestling teams got the tanks of gas that were behind the building, and then they'll set off with all of our infantry in the deep catacombs again. That's when we have you blow up the car wash with a bit of flame and propane, which will open the area to our secret vehicle that's stored there. By the time we get it up and running, more agents will almost be there to see who caused the explosion. We'll be hovering about fifty feet above the main building, where there'll be one tank of propane. You'll finally blow that up, and fly up to the vehicle and we'll head on back.

"Everyone got that?" Leon asked.

We all shook our heads, ready to get out there after listening to this.

Everyone was ready and set to go. Leon and I were punching each other in the chest, getting pumped up for our mission, my first. I got so hyped up right before we left, that my hand accidentally turned into a ball of fire on a punch. Quicker than I could recognize, my arm was out the other side of Leon, and he had a deathly look on his face.

"Oh my gosh! I just killed Leon!" I yelled out. No one turned to look, except Sophie. But the look on her face wasn't one of fear, it was one of joy.

"Leon, knock it off, you scared Ray" Sophie said with a bit of a giggle in her voice.

All of a sudden, Leon's head shot up with a big smile on it. "Fooled ya, didn't I Ray?" he said. Then he burst into laughter.

"Hey Leon, mind explaining why my ARM IS GOING THROUGH YOUR CHEST AND YOUR STILL ALIVE?!"

"What? Do you want me dead or something Ray? You sound disappointed that it was a joke." I shot a glare at him, and he tensed up suddenly. I felt his body tense around my arm.

"Hey Leon, could you at least let my arm loose?" I asked, wanting to stop that weird look people were starting to give us for my arm going right through him. I suddenly felt a weight lifted off of my arm, and pulled my arm loose. "So, what was that for Leon? Scare the new recruit?"

"Actually, no, it's something you need to learn quickly for this mission. All I did was at the exact moment I felt the heat of your flame, I melted that spot of my body into water. Your arm went right through me, and then I made that part of my body solid again. That's the reason you're arm got stuck, because there wasn't any water for you to pull your arm through."

"So, I guess I have to do this when Spike shoots whatever at me? Is that right?"

"Yep, exactly. But you don't have to concentrate on it as much as when in street clothes. The suits help you out some. Don't worry either, you'll be fine. Spike'll even shoot it soft enough that if you mess up, just the tip goes into you."

"Ya, that's real reassuring Leon, thanks." I replied, not very happy with the situation I was going to have to do on my first try.

Everyone got into position. The six of us all went over to the transportation tube. First, a guy brought a bottle of water over. Leon opened it, set it on the ground, and jumped. It looked like he was going to squash the bottle, but then I saw his body rain into the bottle, and he was gone.

"Ok Ray, you see what he just did?" Elijah asked me. "That's how we get around here. You're up next, and you're getting put into a lighter. Whatever you do, don't freak out, or else you'll get really hurt."

Great, so, if I even freak out a bit, I'm going to get hurt? Sounds like fun.

"Here Ray, this might help you feel the heat of the flame and connect with it," Sophie said. With that, she gave me a kiss on my cheek, and I did feel myself burning up. "Just for this once, I'll even hold onto your hand to keep you from freaking out."

Wow, Sophie just kissed me on the cheek, and now she's going to hold my hand?! So far, I'm pretty happy about this mission. After she said that, she grabbed onto my hand, and held it above my head, most likely so nothing would happen to her.

I see a guy bring over a lighter, and hand it to David. He bent down so he was by my feet, and looked up. "You ready Ray? This is gonna be weird the first time around."

I nodded my head, and saw him open the cap of the lighter. David clicked it and got a flame up, then put the flame on my foot. All of a sudden, my foot caught fire, and it was spreading all over my body! It was like someone aimed a flamethrower at my legs, and just sent it up my body. Right when the flame came up to my head, I felt Sophie let go, and everything went black.

It seemed like no time passed at all, and then I was out of the lighter, only to find the T.E.L.L. agent lying unconscious on the ground, with Leon and an empty water bottle next to him. I saw a guy standing behind Leon, with short spiky brown hair.

"So, you made it ok, did you Ray?" Leon asked me. I answered with a simple nod. "This here is Spike, he provides all the gasoline needed for us to run properly." We shook hands and said hi, than Leon continued. "Ok Ray, take this guy back to the bathroom and get his uniform on, we'll get everyone else out from their containers."

As I was dragging the unconscious soldier to the bathroom to change, I saw Leon and Spike had a bottle of dirt, a lightbulb, a flashlight, and a fan by them. It must be holding the others. When I got into the bathroom, I took off the soldier's armor and slipped it on over my uniform.

I walked out of the bathroom to find the others standing by the counter. All of a sudden, Sophie shot a light beam at me. Freaking out, I waved my hand in front of me, only to find that I made a flame shield. The mix of light and flame together was a marvel to the eyes.

"Hey Soph! Try to take out a person on your side before the mission even starts? Real nice!" I said to her jokingly. She turned so red that it was unbelievable.

"Ok you two lovebirds, we have a mission to accomplish here." Leon said. "Spike told me that the guard was able to press the emergency button right before I got him unconscious, so we should have a T.E.L.L. swarm here in a few minutes. Everyone know the plan?" 


	9. A Plan Gone Awry

Chapter 9

A Plan Gone Awry

Little did I know that this plan was going to go so off course, that it wasn't really even a plan once we got halfway through it. It was more an instinct of survival tactic then anything else. Everything started off right though…

***

Everyone except Spike and I were hiding somewhere in the gas station, just waiting for the T.E.L.L. agents to get here. All of a sudden, sirens just started blaring, and armored cars were all around the place. I gave Spike some money that he took out of the cash register back to him, and walked out with a bottle of pop. Guns were drawn and pointed at me, but I just held up the bottle as in 'It's fine, I was just getting a drink.'

"Put the drink down, and lay down on the ground slowly!" a voice yelled out. I did as the voice said, thinking that they saw Spike start to get, well, spiky, and didn't want another agent to get harmed. The plan started spiraling downwards from there.

***

"Crap!" Leon yelled inside the gas station. "They know he's not him! Spike, forget waiting, just fire now. Forget about him morphing his body 'round the spike, just shoot it. Only thing you have to do now is not make it hit him hard enough to seriously injure him. And one last thing, no poison." Leon said all that in one breath, afraid of what was going to happen to his best friend. Spike shot a spike at Ray, hitting him in his right shoulder. He instantly fell down on the ground, laying there like a dead man.

"Change of plan everyone, we're going out there, and harming as many agents as we can. We just want the rest of the gas in storage, and to not have any casualties. That's all right now." Leon stated to the rest of the team. With that, they charged.

***

I was starting to lie down on the ground, hoping nothing bad would happen. When I was about to get my knees on the ground, I felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder, let out a "Ugh," and fell down to the ground, lying there immobile.

***

"They fell for it," one of the Blue's Brothers-looking guys said, "that means we get to have some fun." He finished that sentence with a smirk.

"Yes, it means quite a lot of fun, Troy" the other anonymous man said.

They opened the doors of a bulletproof van, and stepped out into the cloudy world.

***

I opened my eyes to see that there was a massive fight going on between the whole battalion of T.E.L.L. agents and Leon, Sophie, Spike, David, John, and Elijah. All that I was able to move was my neck, so I cranked my head to look at my shoulder, only to find a spike sticking out of it. I surmised that there was some type of sedative or something in it, and that was why I wasn't able to move. Focusing on the sedative being gone, I looked at my friends fighting for their lives, only to see that everything was moving as if God pressed a fast-forward button. Suddenly, I was able to move again.

Getting up, a T.E.L.L. agent came running at me, firing his gun. Throwing up a flame shield just in time, the bullets melted right in front of me. Deciding I might as well make use of the spike in my other hand, I threw it through the flame shield, and it hit the agent in his stomach, going straight through him. Lucky for him, the flame seared the hole up in his body. Looking down at his newly acquired belly button, he fainted and fell to the ground.

I saw out of the corner of my eye that a guy was sneaking up behind Sophie, so I flung a dart of fire at his neck, sending him down to the ground.

"Ray! Do not use your fire here! I repeat, do NOT use fire! You could kill us all, including you!" Elijah yelled out, and then the realization hit me.

'I'm for the most part powerless here. I can't use any fire at all.' Right after that thought ran through my head, I saw the doors of an armored car open and, unbelievable to my eyes, two Patriots stepped out of it, looking for the most part like a canny secret agent movie. They did a quick survey of the battle, then turned and looked straight at me. I was going to have to fight for my life.

***

The Patriots landed on the ground as light as feathers. They started scanning the battle that was unfolding in front of them, one starting from the left, the other from the right. When both of their eyes got to the center of the action, they noticed a familiar face.

"Ah, there's the odd old friend, Lando." The Patriot by the name of Troy said to his associate.

"Yes, it looks like we will have some fun times with him now and in the future… if he can live that long."

Troy and Lando then simualtaneously chuckled, knowing in their heads that the ending of that witty joke was in fact true. They would kill him by whatever means it takes. Starting to head towards their enemy, they advanced casually walking, breaking into a jog then an unhuman sprint. Within seconds, they were behind their target, due to him facing the other way.

"Hello there, _friend_" Troy said to Ray. They spun him around, and his face and whole body went cold like ice.

***

Right when I saw the Patriots step out of that van, I slowed time down the best I could. I sprinted over to a frozen enemy and moved him to the exact spot where I was standing, melting the soles of his shoes to the pavement. Realizing I couldn't hold this time freeze for much longer, I ran past the street adjacent to the gas station, and fired myself up.

As soon as I turned into a human-shaped fireball, time unfroze and I went flying up above the gas station, above the roof of the gas tanks. Remembering the plan we made that went horribly wrong, I relinquished my flame powers a few feet above the roof, dropping down to the sniper rifle perched on the roof. In reality, it was a modified spring action paintball gun, with a few adjustments to accommodate for bullets.

Now that I had a weapon I could use, I ran towards the back edge of the roof, making a leap of faith over to a telephone pole that was standing behind and above all the action. I look through the scope, only to see that my decoy was frozen solid in ice, and the Patriots nowhere to be found. Suddenly, a sun-glassed face popped up in front of me.

***

The Patriots swore loudly, knowing everyone was so into the battle that they wouldn't notice the Patriots losing control of themselves. With a grimace only someone with the evilest intentions could wear, they looked around the entire area, not seeing anyone that could be their target anywhere.

There was a blur caught out the corner of one of the Patriots eyes, which went from the roof above them to a telephone pole. Knowing only one of their enemies could do that, Troy and Lando quickly walked through the crowd towards the pole, pushing everyone in their way without even touching them.

The Patriots got to the base of the pole without their target noticing them. Suddenly, they burst up into the air like rockets, coming to eye level with Ray. They got their target.

***

'POP'.

That was the sound the bullet made exiting the barrel of the gun. I looked down in horror, only to see that it was one of the Patriots that was dead, a pool of blood starting to creep out from his head. In an unconscious motion, I had pulled the trigger when the Patriot face popped up in my scope. They had somehow gotten all the way up to me, but when I shot him in the arm, he lost control of whatever brought him up, sending him falling to his death. At least I knew these "machines" aren't invincible.

Getting over the shock of actually killing someone, even some trying to kill me, I looked to see the other Patriot look down at his dead partner. His head slowly turned up to look at me. He had the face of an enraged member of an army platoon who just witnessed his whole platoon finished off right in front of him. He was ready to kill anything just to get his revenge.

"You killed Lando! You…!!!" the Patriot yelled at me, going into a series of unintelligible strings of swear words. "He was my brother, and you killed him! I am going to make sure you die a death a thousand times more terrible than that!"

With that he started charging at me in the air. Knowing I only had one option of escaping, I fell backwards off the telephone pole, focusing on flying away. But I was too scared. Nothing was happening. Ten feet from the ground. Five. Four. Three. Two. Suddenly, I saw something dive my way, and then I felt a big thump. I never felt the awfulness of death succumb me though. I open my eyes to see Leon by me, jumping up from the ground.

"Run Ray. Run to the grocery store nearby. Lose the Patriot in there. We have everything under control here."

And with that final word, Leon was frozen solid like ice. I saw the Patriot flying at me. No longer scared since the Patriot attacked my friend, I flamed up and flew towards the grocery store. Not caring about the doors or walls, I melted through a wall, heading towards the checkout lanes and the lighters they had by there.

"You never saw me. After a Blues Brother looking guy leaves the store, use the lighter and I'll make sure that none of those guys kill you." I said to the clerk at aisle 11, and with that, I went into a lighter. Everything went black again.

***

With a sudden jolt, I came out of the black void of the lighter to return to our world. I threw up when I saw what surrounded me. Bodies were strewn around the area, all of them with their head attached to complete torsos, but other limbs missing. Everything was covered in a thick layer of ice, including the body parts, which was the only reason there wasn't any blood around.

I suddenly got a deep chill down my spine, not from the cold, but from the realization that all the people that could have retrieved me from the lighter were frozen solid, and no one else was around. Turning around quickly, I realized there was no one around the area at all. I walked toward the front doors to leave, the only hope for the people now was real medical staff, only to find a hat on the ground.

A rush of pain struck me square in the back, sending me onto the ground next to the hat. Turning around, I saw to my disgust the surviving Patriot, except he was more… rabid looking. His normally thin, stretched, skeletal face was red with fury, his normally gelled back hair tussled in all directions, and frost covered his jacket.

"You don't seem to understand this whole future of yours, _Ray_," snarling as he said my name. "It seems that the concept that killing one of us will just leave us weaker, but it actually makes us stronger. There can only be one of each type of Elemental alive on this planet, or else the balance of nature is thrown out of line, and the world will slowly decay. Us, the T.E.L.L., can't trust you _children _with these powers. So we hunt you down until we find you, torture you, extract your elemental power, and leave your body to sap away at the last of the life force in your body.

"You see, all of the Patriots are brothers, created from the same living tissue of one being. You kill one of us, and it drives all of us to kill, maim, and torture you "_Defenders_" even more. But, it doesn't all come at a price. In just a short week, Lando will be born again, and this time, he will be even more powerful, thanks to our advances in technology. For all you know, killing him will eventually lead to the death of your precious Sophie."

That sent me over the top. My face started getting so hot, I couldn't tell if it was from anger or if I was literally on fire. The scum answered that question for me.

"Now, now little Ray," he started to mock as he jumped in a circle like an acrobat. "You wouldn't want to be the cause of death for all these innocent people. You even raise the temperature a small degree, and the ice starts melting, letting their minds be released from this cryogenic-like state. You only have one choice, and that is to give in now. Who knows? I might even lessen the torture time by a few minutes for peaceful cooperation."

"You know, at first I thought you Patriot guys were just misinformed soldiers, but now I know that you're really just psycho freaks of nature. I know how you guys like to make these battles into little games, so I have a game for you. This has been the store I've gone to ever since I was little, and I know the layout of it. Give me two minutes to run in the store and hide somewhere, then you come looking for me. Call it hide and seek if you want to."

"Okay, I guess I'll entertain your lifespan for 3 more minutes. Run, hide, do whatever you want. But here's my two pieces of advice. Don't try to leave the store in any way at all, because you will not make it past the parking lot, and you will die. And my other tip is this, _you can't kill me_. I'll even take it a bit easy on you. Good luck, your two minutes starts now."

I ran for my life, barely acknowledging the two "tips" he gave me. Even though I hadn't been to the store for a few months, I remembered that a set of tall shelves had some metal pipes on the uppermost, unreachable shelf. Arriving at the set of shelves, I climbed up to the top and prepared a little trap for my good friend.

***

Troy started walking in the direction of footprints in the ice. His guard remained lowered, knowing a secret that Ray did not. Coming to the end of the trail, Troy realized that he was in front of a set of shelves. Bending over to make sure there were no more tracks, possibly under the shelves, a sharp pain was returned to him, at the exact place he had hit Ray. Suddenly, Troy was stuck to the ground, his face plastered against the ice.

***

"So I couldn't kill you, huh? Looks like I essentially did. Now you'll feel the torture you've caused many innocent people."

***

With the sound of ice cracking, Ray pulled the pole he had dropped on the Patriot out of the ground, and with extreme strength tossed it into the air, making it land on the opposite end of what had been in the ice. Ray jumped up into the air and grabbed onto the Patriot's legs, and pulled down to bring him back to ground level, but know he was facing upwards. Ray grabbed a smaller unused pipe and was just about to start leaving his mark on the Patriot when he saw him smile.

"Welcome to the club, kid. Can't wait to see you soon." With those last words and an impish smile, the Patriot's, Troy's, breathing stopped. Ray was so angered at him though, he continued to leave his mark on the Patriot's face even though there was no reason to. Using the pipe as an aimer and container, Ray started burning a shield shape onto the Patriot's face, and after finishing it, burned a "D" into the middle of it.

It was his new mark, and he would leave it on all the Patriots that had affected anyone's life in even the slightest negative way through violence. He was finally a Defender.


End file.
